TheNew England Emigrant Aid Company[n 1] (originally theMassachusetts Emigrant Aid Company[4]) was a transportation company founded inBoston,Massachusetts[5] by activistEli Thayer in the wake of theKansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed the population of Kansas Territory to choose whether slavery would be legal. The company's ultimate purpose was to transport anti-slaveryimmigrants into theKansas Territory. The company believed that if enough anti-slavery immigrants settleden masse in the newly-opened territory, they would be able to shift the balance of political power in the territory, which in turn would lead to Kansas becoming afree state (rather than aslave state) when it eventually joined the United States.[6][page needed]
The company is noted less for its direct impact than for the psychological impact it had onproslavery andabolitionist groups. Thayer's prediction that the company would eventually be able to send 20,000 immigrants a year never came to fruition, but it spurredborder ruffians from nearbyMissouri, whereslavery was legal, to move to Kansas to ensure its admission to the Union as a slave state. That, in turn, further galvanizedFree-Staters and other enemies of theSlave Power.[citation needed]
Thayer's intention was to capitalize on anti-slavery sentiment in theNorthern United States and to send settlers to Kansas to purchase land and build houses, shops, and mills. They could then sell the land at a significant profit and send the proceeds back to Thayer and his investors. At the behest of several investors, who found the notion of profiting from the anti-slavery cause distasteful, the company's model was shifted to that of a benevolent society, and it was renamed the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855.[citation needed]
The company was formed in the midst of thesectional crisis that preceded theAmerican Civil War. To the Northern United States, the concept ofpopular sovereignty, which stated that the population of each newUS state should be allowed to decide if it allowed slavery, was an attempt by Southerners to gain power. When theKansas–Nebraska Act threatened to extend popular sovereignty into the newKansas Territory, Eli Thayer, a second-term Congressman from Massachusetts, hatched the idea of an Emigrant Aid Company in the winter of 1853–1854. His primary partners in the venture wereAlexander H. Bullock andEdward Everett Hale, and together, they set Thayer's plans in motion on March 5, 1854.[7] Thayer announced the company at a rally against the impending passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act inWorcester on March 11. Shortly thereafter, the company's charter was approved by theMassachusetts Legislature for up to $5,000,000 in capital.[8][9]
Officially, the company was a profit-making venture, and how the settlers voted was of no consequence to the company. For example, the company secretary, Thomas Webb released a pamphlet in 1855 stating that although the settlers sent to the territories would not be required to vote for one side or the other, they were expected to support the free-state movement.[8] A number of abolitionists questioned the profit motive behind the company, and even many of Thayer's potential investors balked at the notion "that people might say we were influenced by pecuniary considerations in our patriotic work." Although Thayer personally disagreed with such hesitations, in 1855 the company reorganized as abenevolent society and changed its name to the New England Emigrant Aid Company.[10]
The success of the endeavor prompted other aid assistance companies to form back East, inNew York andOhio, with new companies such as the Worcester County Emigrant Aid Society.[11][12]
The company was directly responsible for creating theKansas towns ofLawrence andManhattan, and it played a key role in foundingTopeka andOsawatomie. Lawrence was named after the company secretary,Amos Adams Lawrence.[13] Multiple politicians were found in the emigrants who left for Kansas, such asDaniel Read Anthony,Charles L. Robinson,Samuel C. Pomeroy, andMartin F. Conway, who would later be Kansas's firstUS Representative.[citation needed]
The exact number of people who left for Kansas is unknown. James Rawley puts the numbers somewhere around 2000, about a third of whom returned home,[14] but theKansas Historical Society puts the number at around 900 for those who left for Kansas in 1855 alone.[13]
New England Emigrant Aid Company.
